Associate Professor Bird asserts that failure to retain the opt-in requirements of the federal government's current reforms for the financial advisory sector (the Future of Financial Advice bills, or FoFA) will see a high proportion of Australians paying for little or no advice on an ongoing basis and erode their wealth.

"The opt-in preserves the right of consumers to enter into an ongoing advice relationship if they want to but protects a large group of Australians - including many super fund investors - who either unknowingly enter into, or forget they entered into, an ongoing advisory relationship," says Associate Professor Joanna Bird.